Ah, fair enough. And I’m sure being prone to distraction doesn’t help.
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I found I’ve mostly stopped buying gear now, because after a certain point buying didn’t change anything. I also decided to stop trying to sell gear I didn’t use much, and just put it aside—then rearranged so the gear I like is always easy to reach. And I practice more, which slowly makes everything go smoother…
Buying a piece of gear is good if it opens doors. The last big purchase I made was a Tascam Model 16 recorder, and it helped me record more and feel better, because the recording process became simpler.
It all depends…
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I guess the ones using their gear the most spend less time on web forums so you rarely hear of them. The signal to noise ratio is clearly in favor of the procrastinators.
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There’s a ton on here. Adam Jay comes to mind. He puts out tons of music, very active on the forum and seems to try different rigs fairly often.
There seems to be a certain frame of mind for finishing tracks. Some people work slow, some work fast. Nevertheless they all produce finished albums.
Aphex Twin vs Masive Attack comes to mind.
I’m pretty slow, due to self critiquing obsessively.
I have friends that are stupid fast, putting out multiple albums within a year.
Everyone seems to be a gear hound tho.
I gave some gear to a friend as a housewarming present, but he refused to touch it for six months because he was dialed into a very specific setup and didn’t want to incorporate anything else. Eventually he used and appreciated the gift, but not everyone is a gear hound.
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Everyone I know is, certainly not everyone who makes music tho.
Most people I know are restricted by bugets, but still love talking and investigating gear.
There definitely seems to be people who get used to what they have vs people who cycle through gear.
Most of my friends who make music, finish a lot of tracks no matter what they use or want.
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Personally, I would have a lot less to say about gear on this forum or in general if I didn’t use my gear as much as I do. I don’t think that I’m alone in that.
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No worries. It may just not be something i encounter regularly? It’s a problem i’m conscious of, and thus i tend to take any complaints in the context that i understand of.
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I used to turn gear over after using it a year or two. I would always feel sellers remorse when selling. I also got tired of dealing with less than honourable people when selling stuff. I don’t need the headaches. Around 2001 I decided I wouldn’t sell anything, ever. I would save up for each purchase and pay cash. I’ve got a pretty big setup now. I recently posted a pick in reddit cuz I built a room under the house to hold all this stuff. I’m planning on retiring in the next 5 years so I’m thinking about retirement and ensuring I’ve got lots to do music making wise. I quit trying to be musically successful back around 1992. I realised I needed something a bit more stable. Anyway I’ve got more synths than I can manage, but they are well organised well setup and well maintained and I’m going to lose myself in them when I do retire. Unfortunately, the job I have which enables me to purchase nice things prevents me from using them. I rarely have time after work to musicate but this isnt always the case. To the judgemental people who say you would make time if you really wanted too, I say you don’t know what you’re talking about. My job is pretty intense and I also have a life partner and a life. Having said all that, the moral of the story is just do you and “f” the judgemental people trying to dim your light. Here’s part of my setup.
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If you have gear but don’t talk about it with anyone, does it exist?
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Certain discussions within this topic make me think about Eric Copeland of Black Dice, who has consistently cranked out original singular music for the last 15 plus years using mainly an Sp-404sx, a few cheap effects pedals, a Korg Volca Synth, 90s Boss drum machine, mixer feedback, and not much else.
Examples:
One more from Black Dice, which was made using basically the same gear, plus or minus a few things. It’s mainly just mixer feedback processed through shitty effects and a cheap sampler:
Btw, I’m not against anyone having a lot of gear. I have quite a bit myself, but there’s no way I can justify the idea that me having all of it helps me make better or more interesting music. I have all of it cuz it’s fun, but I often wonder if my musical output would be more prolific if I just stuck with one or two pieces of gear and really pushed myself to go deep with it.
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thats beautiful. reminds me of that room the bad guy in the dexter reboots keeps his trophy girls in, except much nicer
i get seller’s remorse about 70% of the time. but i dont really regret my decision to implement a 1 in-1 out policy a while back
@topo_explo this is a great point. i think about this a lot. i saw eric copeland like 9+ years ago in pittsburgh and ever since then i’ve been fascinated by how he and like animal collective or teebs or four tet and all of those early 00’s-2010’s indie-electronic weirdo artists use it. its as or more ubiquitous than the microkorg from that era and i’ve never used one. do they just trigger samples live mostly? i just use an octatrack (which i just remembered, i became fascinated by because i saw Octo Octa using it live in like 2014) but probably in a different way. what are they doing up there?
check me out, GASSING in the no-gas thread
btw, this is my favorite of his outside of BD (load blown, broken ear record)
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Thank you! You expressed how I feel better than I could myself. I hate these assumptions that the majority or all of us are the same and buy/use our gear in the same way. This thread has been triggering me for days! 
That’s great advice
Yeah I don’t believe anyone is using the 404sx for its sequencer (at least not extensively) so it’s most likely just about triggering samples in real time and playing them through effects. The 404sx is pretty basic, so a lot of sounds are made through resampling and re-processing. It’s much more limited than what we currently have in terms of sampling, but it requires a good ear and a good sense of timing to produce/perform this way.
With Eric Copeland/Black Dice specifically, there is much more of a focus on signal routing and mixer feedback, especially in their Creature Comforts era. Eric Copeland eventually incorporated these techniques into his solo music. You don’t hear it as much in his newer releases though, which seems to coincide with his use of the 404sx in his live performances. Before the 404sx his main sampling tool was a minidisc recorder and these old digitech looper/delay pedals. There’s several interviews with him where he emphasizes how primitive and shitty his setup is; how it takes him forever to line up loops and make them work in a musical context. His attitude has always been about using what you have, and not letting a technical limitation stop you from making something. It’s a really inspiring perspective, although Eric Copeland sometimes takes it to a ridiculous degree.
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I am more interested in buying gear than using it because I am not a musician.
Holy shit, I feel very seen!
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I think the only solution to this is to only buy yellow legal pads from Staples for writing and keep the nice Japanese notebooks for succulent coasters.
Pencil cacti look great on these:
https://www.jetpens.com/Yamamoto-Cosmo-Note-Notebooks/ct/6173
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I like cheap steno pads for that purpose, but pretty much the same thing. I bought a moleskine once and felt like the paper was too nice to use as a scratchpad, so I went back to the old way.
I might feel the same way about my 3rd wave, come to think of it. It’s nice, but I’m not sure the things that make it nice are really useful for me.
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